Double panic doors are required in many buildings such as schools, public buildings and the like, and double doors, whether equipped with panic features or not, are the door arrangement of choice in many other buildings. The term "double door" as used herein, refers to a pair of doors hung in a doorway so that their outer edges substantially meet, i.e., there is no center doorpost in the doorway. Double doors may be mounted to swing inwardly, outwardly, or both.
Double panic doors are doors equipped with bar type latch operators so that the door may be unlatched and opened quickly in a panic situation. The latching mechanisms of the doors generally include latching rods mounted within the meeting stiles of the doors, and cranks for seating and unseating the rods in recesses in the doorsill and door header. It is an essential requirement of double panic doors that either door may be opened independently of the opening or unlatching of the other door of the pair.
Heretofore, the foregoing features and characteristics of double panic doors have made them inherently poor doors from a building security standpoint. The independent-opening feature of such doors precludes the use of overlapping flanges at the meeting edges of the doors for preventing insertion of a jimmying tool between the doors. The large, easy-to-find, easy-to-manipulate panic bars are readily findable and engagable by a jimmying tool worked between the meeting edges of the door. In many cases it takes only a few minutes work with a coat hanger to open a double panic door from the outside.